Volume 5, Number 4, December 2017, pp. 159–164 pISSN: 2338-8110/eISSN: 2442-3890
Preserving Humorous Effects in a Target Language:
Challenges in Translating Culturally Loaded Expressions
Rizky Lutviana*, Siti Mafulah
English Education Department–Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang Jl. S. Supriadi No.48 Kota Malang, 65148. E-mail: lutviana.rizky@unikama.ac.id*
Abstract: Translating humorous discourse presents a big challenge for the translators, frequently al-though the intended meaning is transferred; the humorous effect may be lost due to different cultural terminologies. This research aims to unveil the challenge to translate the cultural specific words that contributed to the funny effect in a Diary of a Wimpy Kid series graphic novel. The first volume of the novel was chosen as the data source. The data were analyzed using Vandaele humor translation theo-ry. The culturally loaded expressions words found include the words from the three foreign cultural words categories including material culture (24%), social culture (55%), and gestures and habits (21%). The challenges in preserving humorous effect dealt with the the choice of words/terminologies that could be understood by most readers, the connotative words that are full of intepretations, and the movements that were expressed in onomatopoeic words. It is suggested that the translator should de-velop the sense of humor and it is also important to consider the readers’ sense of humor.
Key Words: humor translation, culture, graphic novel
Abstrak: Menerjemahkan wacana humoris menyajikan tantangan besar bagi para penerjemah, seringkali, meskipun makna yang dimaksudkan ditransfer; efek lucu mungkin hilang karena terminologi budaya yang berbeda. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap tantangan dalam menerjemahkan kata-kata dalam budaya tertentu yang berkontribusi pada efek lucu dalam serial novel grafis Diary ofaWimpy Kid. Volume pertama dari novel ini dipilih sebagai sumber data. Data dianalisis dengan menggunakan teori terjemahan humor Vandaele. Ekspresi kata yang sarat budaya yang ditemukan termasuk kata-kata dari tiga kata-kata kategori budaya asing termasuk materi budaya (24%), sosial budaya (55%), dan gerak tubuh dan kebiasaan (21%). Tantangan dalam mempertahankan efek lucu dilakukan dengan mengguna-kan pilihan kata-kata atau istilah yang dapat dipahami oleh sebagian besar pembaca, kata-kata konotatif yang memiliki interpretasi banyak, dan gerakan yang diungkapkan dalam kata-kata onomatope. Disaran-kan bahwa penerjemah harus mengembangDisaran-kan rasa humor dan juga penting untuk mempertimbangDisaran-kan perasaan humor pembaca.
Kata kunci: lelucon terjemahan, budaya, novel grafis
Humor cannot be separated from daily practices; it is common for us to use humor to spice up conversationin order to maintain warm and closer relationship. In en-tertainment industry, such as in fiction, humor is consid-ered as one of popular genres. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is one of the humor novel with a unique form, the combination of novel and cartoon. This novel gains its popularity and translated into 40 languages including Bahasa Indonesia.
Due to this unique form, humor in this novel com-prises of three broad categories of humor namely cul-tural humor, universal humor, and language based
Volume 5, Number 4, December 2017 concepts: political and administrative, religious, artistic
and (5) Gestures and habits.
Translating humorous discourse presents a big challenge for the translator. Vandaele (2002) notices that there are four characteristics of humor that hinder the job of translator. First, humor is frequently associ-ated with laughter, yet Vandaele discovers that humor and laughter are different things. “Laughter-unlike humor-does not require a developed human minds that thinks in symbols” (Vandaele, 2002). This indicated that laughter is not always associated with humor com-prehension. The translator needs to be sensitive in understanding laughter resulting from humor. Second, humor comprehension and humor production are two distinct skills. People may understand humor but not all can create humor successfully. In this case the translator may perceive humor but difficult to transfer the funny effect on a target language. Third, “the appre-ciation of humor varies individually”. The sense of humor of every person is different. And fourth, humor creation that is bound to rhetorical effect, such as pun and wordplay, is hard to translate. The translator may not be able to decode the rethorical effect and transfer it to target language as well as its rethorical effect.
Several studies have been done to identify the difficulties and challenges in translating humor, such as Veiga (2009), Sirbu (2016), and Ardeshiri & Zaraf-shan (2014). Veiga (2009) analyzed the challenge in translating audiovisual humor, namely the subtitling of
Forrest Gump movie. To identify the challenge, she
compared the original text (English) with the translated/ subtitled version that was written in Portuguese. She noticed that verbal humor requires a special treatment, “not only as far as linguistic mechanisms are con-cerned, but also regarding the universe of paralinguistic elements (such as prosodic elements like tone, pitch, rhythm)” (Veiga, 2009).
The challenge was that humor in audiovisual translation is limited by technical (acoustic, and visual synchronization), linguistic and cultural constraints. Thus, she explained that it is important for the translator to have three competences in translating humor in audi-ovisual media. The competences include: (1) technical competence (subtitling techniques), (2) translation competence (linguistic and communicative), and (3) humor complicity (humor sensitivity-humor aware-ness).
Focusing on humor creation based on social and cognitive views, Sirbu (2016) conducted study about humor superiority (humor in a form of abuse, mockery, aggression, malice, and derision) and humor incongruity
(humor that is created by giving contrastive and con-fusing effect to the reader or audience) on a two series of popular novel Three Men in a boat and Three
Men on the Bummel. Sirbu (2016) identified the
diffi-culties in translating humor with regard to inequivalence translation on incongruity humor and the translation of superiority humor except the aggression category. He concluded that the difficulty was dealing with situ-ations that produced funny surprise in both incongruity and superiority humor. The equivalence was achieved when the translator transferred the funny surprise to the target language.
Ardeshiri & Zarafshan (2014) considering cultur-al issues in ancultur-alyzing 50 Iranian humorous books. They used the theory of Newmark’s (1998) metaphors translation theory, Lakoff and Johnson’s (1978) meta-phors classification, and Yarmohammadi’s (1993) con-sideration in translating metaphors to formulate the strategy in translating humor. The data were the result of translated book by four experts. They concluded that in translating humor, cultural elements contributed much on the effect of humor translation. The transla-tors employed cultural strategies, that were using the terms that could be understood by most readers from different cultures. In this case, the translator put em-phasize on the target text.
The previous studies give insight that in translating cultural humorin the graphic novel, namely The Diary
of a Wimpy Kid, the translator should consider the
paralinguistic elements (such as prosodic elements like tone, pitch, rhythm), translator competences, and cul-ture. However, different from the previous studies, this present study recognized the challenge in transla-ting cultural humor by applying Vandaele (2002) humor translation theory and classifying the data findings using Newmark (1988, p. 95) proposes five cultural catego-ries of the translation of ‘foreign’ cultural words.
METHODS
This study is descriptive qualitative in which the purpose is to identify the challenges the translator faced when translating culturally-loaded expression words in a cultural humor found in the first volume of the humor graphic novel The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The first volume was chosen as the data source be-cause the topic of the story contained cultural specific events of western culture such as Halloween and Thanksgiving ceremony. The data were collected and recorded on the checklists and document analysis. The researcher analyzed the challenge in translating cultural humor by applying Vandaele’s (2002) humor translation theory and classifying the data findings using New-mark (1988, p. 95) who proposes five cultural catego-ries of the translation of ‘foreign’ cultural words.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
There were three out of five cultural categories of the translation of foreign cultural words found in the graphic novel The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, those were (1) material culture, (2) social culture, and (3) Gestures and habits; the cultural humor from the cat-egory of ecology and organization was not found since the settings of the story were mostly inhouse and school surrounding. The frequency distribution of each category can be seen in Table 1.
keep the word untranslated, as elaborated in Example 1 and Example 2.
Example 1
Source Text
But I decided if I don’t want to get twisted into a pretzel for the next month and a half, I’d better do my homework on this wrestling busi-ness. (Page 77)
Target Text
Tapi aku memutuskan, kalau tidak ingin
ter-pelintir seperti kue pretzel selama satu
sete-ngah bulan berikutnya, sebaiknya aku mempersiapkan diri dalam menghadapi ma-salah gulat ini. (Halaman 77)
Example 2
Sorce Text
But that didn’t stop us from coming to the cafe-taria for the free hot chocolate they hand out to the other Patrols before homeroom.
Target Text
Namun, itu tidak berarti kami tidak bisa me-ngunjungi kafetaria untuk menikmati mi-numan cokelat panas yang mereka bagikan untuk para pengawas sebelum masuk ke
homeroom*. (Halaman 153)
*Homeroom = kelas tempat setiap siswa
ha-rus melapor pada jam-jam tertentu.
In Example 1, the translator did not translate the word pretzel, yet he added the word “kue” to give in-formation to the reader that pretzel is a kind of biscuit. However, it seemed that the reader may not perceive the funny effect, since pretzel was used to illustrate what happen to the character if he did not want to practice for wrestling, and that was what made it fun-ny. Conversely, in example 2, the translator explained the word homeroom clearly to the reader by giving footnote. This made the reader grasp the meaning.
The next challenge for the translator to transfer the humorous effect in a target language is to find the equivalence of terminology for certain concept such as Halloween costume. In Example 3 the phrase “Toi-let Paper Mummy” was translated to “MUMMY TI-SU GULUNG”. In Indonesia, the popular term for toilet paper is “tisu gulung” (a long roll tissue paper).
Table 1. The Frequency Distribution of Each Category
No Category Frequency Percentage 1. Material culture 13 24 % 2. Social culture 29 55 % 3. Gestures and habits 11 21%
Total 53 100%
The third category, “organizations, customs, activ-ities, procedures, concepts”, seemed to be the most frequent data found. In the story, many foreign concep-tual words that described customs and activities existed in the novel, besides the first category, that is material culture.
Material Culture
transla-Volume 5, Number 4, December 2017 to clean themselves when they have been to the toilet,
in this case the translator emphasize the form rather than the function of the tissue.
Example 3
Source Text
I’ve never had a store-bought costume before. I still haven’t figured out what I’amgonna go as tomorrow night, so I’ll probably just throw something together at the last minute. I figure maybe I’ll bring back the Toilet Paper Mum-my again. (Page 62)
Target Text
Aku belum pernah memiliki kostum yang di-beli dari toko. Aku masih belum tahu hendak menyamar sebagai apa besok malam. Jadi, aku mungkin akan membuat kostum seada-nya pada detik terakhir. Kurasa aku akan
kembali menghidupkan tokoh MUMMY
TI-SU GULUNG. (Halaman 62)
Social Culture
Newmark (1988, p. 98) notes that in translating social culture foreign word, the translator should con-sider “denotative and connotative problems of transla-tion”. Connotative difficulties of words include the translation of reference of something that is often indi-cated with the phrase “the people”, “the common peo-ple”, etc. In other words, it dealt with implicit meaning of the text. Example 4 illustrates the challenge in trans-lating connotative phrase “falling for that one”. The intended meaning of that phrase is “to be tricked into believing something that is not true” and the reference “that one” refers to the trick Rodrick did to the main character. In English, the vocabulary is richer to denote the word “trick”(an action which purpose is to deceive, either as cheating, or joking for entertainment). It sy-nonymous with the words cheat (dishonest), and prank (a trick that is intended to be funny but not to cause harm or damage). What is meant by “that one” in the Example 4 is prank. However, it is hard to find the e-quivalent meaning of the word “prank” in Bahasa In-donesia. The word “Kibulan” was Javanese vernacu-lar for the word prank. Consequently, reader from outside Java may not understand the meaning of that word. It is better for the translator to keep the more general word that represent prank, that is “lelucon”. This word can be understood by most Indonesians.
Example 4
Source Text
A couple of days into summer vacation, Rodrick woke me up in the middle of the night. He told me I slept through the whole summer, but that luckily I woke up just in time for the first day of school. You might think I was pretty dumb for
falling for that one. (Page 11)
Target Text
Beberapa hari pertama diawali liburan mu-sim panas, Rodrick membangunkanku di te-ngah malam. Dia bilang aku ketiduran se-panjang musim panas, tetapi aku beruntung bisa bangun tepat waktu pada hari pertama masuk sekolah. Kalian pasti berfikir aku
terlalu bodoh untuk percaya pada kibulan
seperti itu. (Halaman 11)
Example 5
Source Text
Rodrick’s in some hot water with Mom right now, too. Manny got ahold of one of Rodrick’s heavy metal magazines, and one of the pages had a picture of a woman in a bikini lying across the hood of a car. And then Manny brought it into day care for show-and-tell. (Page 41.)
Target Text
Sekarang, Rodrick juga sedang direbus oleh Mom. Manny menemukan salah satu majalah heavy metal Rodrick, dan pada sa-lah satu halaman terdapat foto wanita ber-balut bikini yang sedang berbaring di atas kap mobil. Kemudian, Manny membawa ma-jalah itu ke tempat penitipan anak untuk
acara tunjukkan-dan-ceritakan. (Halaman
41)
Another challenge in translating social culture foreign word can be seen in Example 5. “Show-and-tell” is a school activity for young children in which a child brings an object into the class and talks to the other children about it (Cambridge Advanced Learn-er’s dictionary). This activity is not common in Indone-sia, the challenge faced by translator in translating this term is to find the equivalent term. In this case, the translator used literal translation method “
Gestures and Habits
Gesture can be defined as a movement of the hands, arms or head, etc. to express an idea or feeling (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s dictionary). In the novel, most of the gestures came from the movement and the sound of human’s emotion, for instance when they scream, laugh, grumble, etc.
In Example 6 and Example 7, the challenge that the translator faced was to translate the movements that were expressed in onomatopoeic words or literally explain the movement to the readers. In this case the translator should understand the movement and asso-ciate it with the setting and the situation described in the cartoon. In Example 6, the word “Scream” was the expression of fear of something, in this case the “Cheese touch”. It is better for the translator to trans-late the expression of scream of fear in a target lan-guage, that is “AAAAAAA”.
Moreover, in the Example 7, “Grunt” is the noise sound of pig, we may intepret that the author used this word to show that the character were very tired of pulling the snow. The same thing also with the word “wheeze” which means a high, rough noise while breathing because of some breathing difficulty, this word emphasized that the characters were really tired and they spent much energy. The challenge that the
translator faced was whether he sould translate the movement or the emotion as the effect of the move-ment. In this case the translator chose literal translation to translate the movement.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, translating humor in graphic novel required the translator to be aware of humor and trans-late humor based on the situation and the context of the source text. In perserving humorous effect on a target text, the challenges that the translator faced were on the choice of words/terminologies that could be understood by most readers. In translating material culture foreign words, the translator should be sensi-tive in identifying the readers’ familiarity with the for-eign words used. If the words were internationally popular, it is not translated.
Moreover, in translating social culture foreign words, the challenge was dealing with connotative words that are full of intepretation. Besides, in dealing with culture specific expression, it is hard to find the word with exact meaning in target text, because the lack of terminology in target text. Next, in translating gestues, the challenge was to translate the movements that were expressed in onomatopoeic words and
trans-Figure 1. The Original and the Translation Gesture of “Screaming” (Example 6)
Source Text Target Text
Volume 5, Number 4, December 2017 fer it to the target text based on the given situation to
evoke the humorous effect.
Regarding the conclusion, it is suggested for the translator to develop the sense of humor, and really understand the joke that he/she going to translate. Be-sides, it should be kept in mind that in preserving the humorous effect, the translator should consider the acceptability of the word/terminology they use in target text. In other words, it is also important to consider the readers’ sense of humor.
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